Vol. 2, Issue 8: Chicago After IPRA
Friends, family and supporters gathered July 29 at a vigil for 18-year-old Paul O'Neal. (photos by Vidura Jang Bahadur)
At Issue: Police suspended in South Side shooting
Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson stripped three officers of their police powers after reviewing bodycam video of an incident last week in which 18-year-old Paul O’Neal was shot to death during a traffic stop in South Shore.
Johnson’s swift action represents a significant departure from past practice, the Chicago Tribune noted.
An autopsy of O’Neal showed that he was shot in the back. O’Neal was unarmed, police have said. An eyewitness told reporters that O’Neal was shot after he had left the vehicle and was running away.
O’Neal was shot on Thursday, about a half-hour after a robbery suspect in Englewood was shot and wounded as he ran from police, who said they saw a weapon in his hand.
Earlier in the week, the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) recommended that three officers be fired in two incidents (in 2013 and 2015) in which unauthorized force was allegedly used by police who fired at vehicles that were driving away.
Police Push Back. Controversial Police Lieutenant Glenn Evans sued the city and 12 IPRA investigators, along with WBEZ-FM, charging that political pressure—and a personal grudge by one of its investigators—led to his indictment on official misconduct and aggravated battery charges last year. He was acquitted of the charges in December.
Earlier this year, IPRA recommended that Evans be fired in a separate case—in which he broke a suspect’s nose while forcing her to submit to fingerprinting—but missed a legal deadline to submit the recommendation.
Evans accumulated at least 45 excessive force complaints between 1988 and 2008, only two of which resulted in disciplinary action, according to WBEZ. Between 1999 and 2013, Evans was named as a defendant in five federal lawsuits that the city settled, paying out nearly $200,000.
It is not the first legal pushback this year by an officer accused of excessive force. In February, Officer Robert Rialmo sued the estate of Quintonio LeGrier, whom Rialmo shot and killed last December, charging that LeGrier caused Rialmo “extreme emotional trauma and distress.” That may be the first time an individual has sued someone they killed. Rialmo is seeking $10 million in damages.
Meanwhile, the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) urged its members to turn down non-mandatory overtime over the Labor Day weekend to protest “continued disrespect” of police officers. FOP President Dean Angelo said the call was “not a job action” and was not related to upcoming contract talks. “It’s for our members to spend time with their families.”
Marijuana Decriminalized. Illinois became the 21st state to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana last week when Governor Bruce Rauner signed legislation punishing possession of up to 10 grams with fines of up to $200.
The measure will not affect Chicago and other municipalities that have already reduced penalties. Chicago partially decriminalized marijuana possession in 2012, giving officers the option of writing tickets for possession of less than 15 grams, and last year, State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez announced that her office would not prosecute cases involving possession of less than 30 grams.
Though he has called for reducing levels of incarceration, Rauner has resisted efforts to reduce the impact of the war on drugs, vetoing a marijuana decriminalization bill last year; he argued that its fines were too low and the threshold for criminal charges was too high.
He has also rejected recommendations from an advisory board to expand eligibility for medical marijuana for people suffering from PTSD and other conditions. In June, a Cook County judge ordered the state’s public health director to add PTSD to the list of eligible diseases, and in two decisions last week, judges ordered the agency to reconsider its rejection of migraine headaches and irritable bowel syndrome from the list of qualifying diseases.
Four similar cases are pending.
Other News. Former Cook County Judge Patricia Brown Holmes was appointed special prosecutor to investigate whether police officers at the scene of the shooting of Laquan McDonald participated in a cover-up.
The Let Us Breathe Collective and other activists set up an encampment next to the Homan Square police station, protesting a proposed ordinance that would add hate crime penalties to attacks on police. The Chicago Reporter has a video report.
Immigration activists rallied for a proposed amendment to the Welcoming City Ordinance that would ban police officers and other city employees from threatening deportation or questioning an individual’s immigration status. In one controversial incident in 2014, police officers struck a handcuffed woman and threatened to send her back “where she came from.”
